Ancient algae could become future biofuel source

Ancient algae that contributed to formation of the oil and coal
deposits we currently rely upon could hold a key to new energy
sources.

Algae biodiesel is being researched around the world as an
alternative to land-grown biofuels, and, as Wired.co.uk has previously reported, is part of a related
project at Cambridge University. A team at the University of
Kentucky College of Agriculture, however, has focused its attention
on specific algae -- Botryococcus
braunii; and has managed to identify and isolate its oil
producing genes -- and engineer them into yeast cells.

In a statement, the biochemists explain: "While scientists
previously established that oil and coal have their roots in the
organisms that lived on the planet over 500 million years ago, [this] one micro-organism directly
contributed to these natural resources."

This algae is still available today but the Kentucky team point
out that it grows too slowly to be a suitable source for biofuels. Instead, they captured the genes within the
micro-organism that cause the biosynthesis that produces the high
value oils. They then "characterised the biochemical traits encoded
by these genes", and then genetically engineered yeast to produce
this very high-value oil. The team claims: "This work has provided
the first example of recreating a true direct replacement for oil
and coal shale deposits."

Tim Devarenne, a UK graduate and now professor of biochemistry
and biophysics at Texas A&M
University, worked on the project and says: "This study
identifies a very remarkable molecular mechanism for the production
of hydrocarbons that, as far as we can tell, is not found in any
other organism. Thus, it offers a unique insight into how
hydrocarbons were produced hundreds of millions of years ago."

And this finding, says Professor Joe Chappell, who led the
project, could see evidence from the past solve a future crisis: "This represents the culmination of an
outstanding effort to understand a fundamental process that has
direct ramifications for a real-world problem -- how are we going
to generate a truly renewable biofuel supply?"

Comments

While this is very interesting work, it doesn't address the primary problem with biofuels and that is their limitation on available (logistically) nutrients at the levels needed for commercial primary energy production systems. Algae production like other plants is limited by phosphate which is estimated to peak in less than 30 years. Lipid producing yeasts removes the photo requirements of algae, but doesn't remove the need for heated production and logistically feasible sources of basic nutrients. This means that lipid producing yeast are more useful in recycling processes than algae, but from a mass balance analysis in the commercial scale sense they are still probably not going to be significant primary energy producers. Given the relatively short window of opportunity mankind has in developing sustainable energy sources before resource acquisition caused survival conflicts create global chaos, we might be far better off concentrating on those energy sources that have the least dependence on earth resources like solar related - photovoltaic, wind, wave, and tidal.

Durwood M. Dugger

Jul 12th 2011

There is no reason why you can't endlessly recycle the phosphate as it is not part of the output fuel.